My favorite suit is a 3-button dark charcoal pinstripe suit. You can wear white, blue, pink, lavender shirts. It just as versatile as the blue suit, in my opinion. Slacks should always have pleats and 1' to 1.5" cuffs. There's a height restriction to the number of buttons on a suit. 6' and up, can wear 3 button but not necessarily a 2 button depending upon the jacket and vice versa. Anybody shorter than 6'3" should not wear a suit that has more than 3 buttons. It will look like the costumes the Flying Monkey were wearing on the Wizard of Oz.

Suits are intimately connected to cars, oil, air conditioning and wars that beget the energy for us to live in such an inbalanced, unsustainable way. Suits are a great investment if you want to make more money, and keep the working class busy doing menial labor and thankless sanitation work. Nothing says "I'm too important to worry about petty cleaning jobs and anything that involves the potential for sweating", than a nice starched, gleaming white dress shirt, with bib-d*ck noose around your neck.

"Allright, that's it dobopoq, don't make me file a lawsuit against you. Everyone else is following suit, why don't you? Are you sure you're suited for that kind of work? Does it suit you well? Don't you know, you've got to conform to what the vested interested have in mind?"

Yes, it's all really quite logical. The more money you spend on your suit, the more money you are likely to make. Who cares about the poor. Let them sweat and slave to make the finery only the chosen privileged elite - deserve and can afford to wear. Who cares about practicality or comfort. You've come a long way baby. You're too important to need to sweat or do anything practical anymore. All you need to do now is look like you make a lot of money - that's what you do in a suit. That's what a suit does for you.

So maybe instead of welfare we just get proletariat a good tailor?

Mike, seersucker is the only way to go. Chicks dig a man with the confidence to wear a white seersucker suit.

dobopoq, why do you have to ruin this thread with conversation that only partly has to do with what Michaelskis is asking. I'm sure he (and the other suit buyers/wearers) that participated in this thread appreciate your cheap shot.

What do you wear to social occasions? Or are you even invited?

Off topic: (in my own defense)
It doesn't surprise me if people try to sweep these moral issues under the rug. It would only further validate my critique.

Any group of people that would exclude someone from a social occaision merely on how they are dressed doesn't sound like a very open minded group of people to me. The only times I have grudgingly worn a suit have been to job interviews and the occaisional wedding or funeral at the behest of my family. To object to my joining into a discussion about buying a suit because I'm speaking to the social stratification and gender oppression that it can foster, is being a bit reactionary, I think. Suits, diamonds, cars, fur coats etc. - these are items of adornment that are marketed as status symbols that "promise" to confer prestige, with the equal and opposite effect of de-ni-grating those who don't own them. Proper pride in its place is necessary and appropriate, but when you surround yourself with these status symbols, you do so out of arrogance.

I am bohemian until I meet with thugs who would resort to violence or theft for gain, or narcissists who engage in competitive consumption. And then yes, I am either not welcome, or choose to leave.

I think Mskis was looking more for a specialty store. He has high standards with regards to personal style and I don't think just any ol' pimp suit will do. I've already pointed out a number of fine suits, but each time he's turned them down for very specific reasons....."the lapels aren't wide enough.... the feather in the hat isn't long enough.... it needs to be crimson not wine colored...."

He's very particular and overall a tough customer to please.

None of my hats have big feathers, but I can be pimpin' if I want to be. Never thought that Mskis was so high maintenance, must be that Northern Michigan culture and the mantra "the only good snowmobiles are from Canada"....

If he is looking to make a trip, I did not even think of Canada, but we have Freed's of Windsor. Its on Ottawa Street and is where the Red Wings buy their suits.

Because nobody ever wore a suit before cars, air conditioning, or oil wars...

In the 19th century, suits were even more the preserve of the upper classes, when class structure was more sharply defined. In today's wonderful world of upward economic "mobility", people can't hardly get to a decent job without owning a car, cheap gas in their tank, and AC to keep from sweating in their ridiculous work mandated formal wear.

So maybe instead of welfare we just get proletariat a good tailor.

This is in fact what many people do, putting it on plastic, and getting in debt to "look" as though they make/have a lot of money.

(SNIP)
I am bohemian until I meet with thugs who would resort to violence or theft for gain, or narcissists who engage in competitive consumption. And then yes, I am either not welcome, or choose to leave.

Well I donít feel like getting my arse kicked by my best friends soon to be wife... Letís just say that if I donít show up in something (thinking I might go with a tux) I will not live long enough to see the open bar. I have gone 2 Ĺ years with no suit, I am ok without it. But out of respect for my best friend, who asked this of me, I am looking into getting a suit. As with everything that taps into my wallet, I donít want to spend money on something that is garbage. If I go, I go as big as I can consider the place that I am at now. Not because of other people, but because of me.

But in many other occasions, I do agree with you completely. There are a lot of people out there that are dressed to the 9ís but are nothing more than losers deep down. I personally feel better when I am dressed up. I own twice as many dress pantís as I do jeans. Some people are jeans and t-shirt people while others are shirt and tie type of people. But the fact is, people are people, and I think a lot of people on both sides of the fashion line forget about that all too often.

Originally posted by DetroitPlanner

None of my hats have big feathers, but I can be pimpin' if I want to be. Never thought that Mskis was so high maintenance, must be that Northern Michigan culture and the mantra "the only good snowmobiles are from Canada"....

Best ďSledsĒ come from Thief River Falls MN.

Originally posted by DetroitPlanner

If he is looking to make a trip, I did not even think of Canada, but we have Freed's of Windsor. Its on Ottawa Street and is where the Red Wings buy their suits.

I am a single planner, working but also in grad school, I canít swing that kind of cash... YET.

If you want different results in your life, you need to do different things than you have done in the past. Change is that simple.

I am pretty sure the saleperson and tailor I try to use make more than I do.

I don't begrudge them, especially the tailor, as they do a great job and help me choose clothes that fit, look good and last a long time. my 9 year old Hugo Boss wool pants still look new and have been let in and out multiple times as I have lost and gained weight.

I wish I could find the exact quote, and I am pretty sure it was Maimonides who professed "that a man should spend more on his appearance then on his food."

As for freeds, I bought some clothes there in university, very good shop and very helpful with finding a good shore repair place when I needed one.

Too lazy to beat myself up for being to lazy to beat myself up for being too lazy to... well you get the point....

Suits are intimately connected to cars, oil, air conditioning and wars that beget the energy for us to live in such an inbalanced, unsustainable way....[snip]....All you need to do now is look like you make a lot of money - that's what you do in a suit. That's what a suit does for you.

That's great!!! Do you work for the Onion?

You've got issues, dude. Remember the old saying that talks about a book and its cover?

M'skis and others, I don't question that a suit can look good. I have no problem with people who like to wear suits. What I do have a problem with is the expectation that I am expected to wear a suit, particularly in a job interview situation.

There are reasonable standards for what constitutes proper English, and there are standards for safety in engineering, but fashion is far more trivial and should be subjective. To say it's just a uniform, so shut up and accept it, ignores the fact that a nice suit is many more times expensive (for reasons that have more to do with exclusivity than any real need to cost so much) than what the girl at the drive-thru fast-food wears or the numbered jersey that sports teammates have to wear.

People should be allowed to wear what they want. But people are so ready to hide behind suits as some accepted standard that confers instant respectability that the Jeff Skillings, Michael Milkens and Bernie Ebers of the world can rob people blind - aided in part by their totemic use of the suit. Lets not forget Hitler, Geobbels and Goerhring wore suits while assuming the mantle of a respectable new government. In our fast paced society, suits are too often accepted/expected as a fake ID for good character. You can't or at least shouldn't, judge a book by its cover - even a very fancy refined cover.

M'skis, I hope you find a suit you like at a good price, and I'm glad to know that you are getting one because you really want it for yourself, and not because you feel compelled to get it just to be acceptable to someone else. Good luck!

M'skis and others, I don't question that a suit can look good. I have no problem with people who like to wear suits. What I do have a problem with is the expectation that I am expected to wear a suit, particularly in a job interview situation.

There are reasonable standards for what constitutes proper English, and there are standards for safety in engineering, but fashion is far more trivial and should be subjective. To say it's just a uniform, so shut up and accept it, ignores the fact that a nice suit is many more times expensive (for reasons that have more to do with exclusivity than any real need to cost so much) than what the girl at the drive-thru fast-food wears or the numbered jersey that sports teammates have to wear.

People should be allowed to wear what they want. But people are so ready to hide behind suits as some accepted standard that confers instant respectability that the Jeff Skillings, Michael Milkens and Bernie Ebers of the world can rob people blind - aided in part by their totemic use of the suit. Lets not forget Hitler, Geobbels and Goerhring wore suits while assuming the mantle of a respectable new government. In our fast paced society, suits are too often accepted/expected as a fake ID for good character. You can't or at least shouldn't, judge a book by its cover - even a very fancy refined cover.

M'skis, I hope you find a suit you like at a good price, and I'm glad to know that you are getting one because you really want it for yourself, and not because you feel compelled to get it just to be acceptable to someone else. Good luck!

Yes, mendelman, I do have issues.

But, no society is without standards and expectations for dress. The blue collar folks you worship so much sneer at people who do dress up because they like to.

You call yourself a "bohemian." The typical bohemian would be as sneering, as judgemental as those you reject IF I, for example, showed up in a Phish concert wearing neatly pressed khakhis and a polo shirt. Wow, man look at that stooge of the man. Give me a break.

As for the Job Interview thing-choose your battles. Job interviews are inevitably "oppressed" situations anyway. You want something desperately that only they can give you at that moment. You're going to make a big sociopolitcal statement about it at that point in time. That seems foolish.? What does that say about your ability to "fit in" to the company or agency you are interviewing with. Because, oppressive as it may be, your interviewer is looking for your ability to fit in to the agency-and that may mean following conventions and oppressive standards.

dobopoq: Society expects you to dress a certian way in certian circumstances. Sure, go to a wedding in jeans and a tee-shirt. Maybe you're making a political statement but you're also saying "**** you" to the hosts, because that's how society requires us to interpert it. If you don't want to be interperted that way, then conform. Otherwise, stay the hell away from my formal functions.

By the way: I don't own a suit, nor could I afford one, even a cheap one. I do have a sports jacked and wear it with a tie and slacks whenever I'm in a formal situation. I trust the hosts will forgive my lack of nicer clothing on account of my financial situation.

dobopoq: Society expects you to dress a certian way in certian circumstances. Sure, go to a wedding in jeans and a tee-shirt. Maybe you're making a political statement but you're also saying "**** you" to the hosts, because that's how society requires us to interpert it. If you don't want to be interperted that way, then conform. Otherwise, stay the hell away from my formal functions.

By the way: I don't own a suit, nor could I afford one, even a cheap one. I do have a sports jacked and wear it with a tie and slacks whenever I'm in a formal situation. I trust the hosts will forgive my lack of nicer clothing on account of my financial situation.

Heck. I don't really own a "suit" anymore, either. I have a 12-year old jacket (from when Eddie Bauer (RIP) was trying to sell dress clothes) that used to have long worn-out dress pants with it. I'll wear that with nice trousers at City Council meetings.

So this member of the OPPRESSOR CLASS is, alas, somewhat underdressed. I rarely wear a tie. Partly because my corpulence due to a junk food addiction means wearing a tie is uncomfortable (no, I won't buy bigger shirts, dammit!!! )

dobopoq: Society expects you to dress a certian way in certian circumstances. Sure, go to a wedding in jeans and a tee-shirt. Maybe you're making a political statement but you're also saying "**** you" to the hosts, because that's how society requires us to interpert it. If you don't want to be interperted that way, then conform. Otherwise, stay the hell away from my formal functions.

By the way: I don't own a suit, nor could I afford one, even a cheap one. I do have a sports jacked and wear it with a tie and slacks whenever I'm in a formal situation. I trust the hosts will forgive my lack of nicer clothing on account of my financial situation.

Society expected women to have their feet bound (thus destroying their ability to walk) in ancient China, and to have their spines crushed by corsets among upper class Victorians, and modern women often feel compelled to wear high heels rendering them more immobile and vulnerable and thus in need of a protective male with a car. And society expects men to wear a neck choking tie, constricting the flow of blood from their heart to their brain, as their life expectancy has fallen 6 years behind that of women. It's the same old thing of physical constriction for the sake of "formality" often with a gender-based component. Its always for the sake of maintaining identifiable barriers for which the poor can be seperated from the rich.

by BKM

You call yourself a "bohemian." The typical bohemian would be as sneering, as judgemental as those you reject IF I, for example, showed up in a Phish concert wearing neatly pressed khakhis and a polo shirt. Wow, man look at that stooge of the man. Give me a break.

Bohemians are people who live without regard for conventional rules and practices. Any people who would judge you at the Phish show for dressing that way, are not true bohemians IMO, because then they have identified too strongly with the fashions of their own subculture. A true bohemian is not limited to a specific "look". Bohemian is a negative term, not a positive term. It is defined more by what it is not, than by what it is. To me at least, Bohemian means to be unconcerned with whether you or another person conforms to a set standard of dress or behavior. So it doesn't matter to me how someone dresses, but if someone has a problem with my disregard for fashion conventions then my problem with them is with their intolerance for my tolerance.

I never knew that this is why women wore high heels. I'm going to make my girlfriend wear heels so that I can be a better man...

Now I am the one who is in need of a break....

So you're saying, you don't see the wearing of high heels as being at all related to the ancient Chinese practice of footbinding?

High heels are a much milder form of footbinding; kind of like of like codeine compared to heroin. Ancient Chinese men thought it was sexy. Just as many men today think high heels are sexy. Would you think it's sexy, if you saw a good looking woman with bound feet? I would assume and hope not.

The fetish for high heels is just as arbitrary as foot binding. There's nothing wrong with sexual fetish, but when it influences what you're expected to wear in the everyday work world, it becomes oppressive.

Would you agree that a woman is less mobile in high heels than she is in any kind of flat or low heel shoe?
What is the standard cultural expectation in this country for a 1st date? Does it not involve the male "picking up" the female at her residence, in "his" car? I think it does. You might say, "Well girls are more vulnerable". Do the high heels not enhance this vulnerability? Does the car not add to "his" image of rugged individualism?

These conventions have served to make women more dependent on men, thus emphasizing a division of labor between the sexes, with men as breadwinners and females as domestic caretakers and sex objects. But many working women rebel against this by wearing comfortable sneakers to and from the office even as they continue to flaunt their sexual assets. Women have gotten liberated. Now it is mens turn.

So you're saying, you don't see the wearing of high heels as being at all related to the ancient Chinese practice of footbinding?

High heels are a much milder form of footbinding; kind of like of like codeine compared to heroin. Ancient Chinese men thought it was sexy. Just as many men today think high heels are sexy. Would you think it's sexy, if you saw a good looking woman with bound feet? I would assume and hope not.

High heels make our legs look better.

And many women appreciate a guy in jeans, rather than a suit, because it defines their ass so much better.

I am a single planner, working but also in grad school, I canít swing that kind of cash... YET.

Psst, lots of folks from my agency shop at Freeds, its not super expensive, and you can get some real good deals there. Keep in mind that prices given may be in Canadian, and the US price would be less.

I just bought a new suit. I found it at almost half-price at a small local designer store. Granted, it's a women's suit, and its from NZ, but I just thought I'd put in my $0.02 as I am very happy with it and it is a little different because it it from a boutique designer. Don't be afraid to get something a little different if you like how it looks on you. As long as the style will not date too quickly.

Bohemians are people who live without regard for conventional rules and practices. Any people who would judge you at the Phish show for dressing that way, are not true bohemians IMO, because then they have identified too strongly with the fashions of their own subculture. A true bohemian is not limited to a specific "look". Bohemian is a negative term, not a positive term. It is defined more by what it is not, than by what it is. To me at least, Bohemian means to be unconcerned with whether you or another person conforms to a set standard of dress or behavior. So it doesn't matter to me how someone dresses, but if someone has a problem with my disregard for fashion conventions then my problem with them is with their intolerance for my tolerance.

Wow. I would love to meet this class of people. There are few people as judgemental, class consciouss, and interested in conventions and symbols than the typical left wing "hippie/bohemians" I have met. There are always exceptions, but since you are eagerly making broad generalizations about entire classes of people and wardrobe elements, I'll hold to my judgement. You need to visit the Left Coast, man.

As for ties choking your airflow off-have you ever considered that you may be tying them a little too tightly? Maybe using the wrong knot? Just loosen the thing a bit.

Singapore...or Hong Kong....

Originally posted by JNL

I just bought a new suit. I found it at almost half-price at a small local designer store. Granted, it's a women's suit, and its from NZ, but I just thought I'd put in my $0.02 as I am very happy with it and it is a little different because it it from a boutique designer. Don't be afraid to get something a little different if you like how it looks on you. As long as the style will not date too quickly.

Don't those of you "Down Under" just go to Singapore for a weekend every year to buy clothes at deeply discounted prices???

ďThe way of acquiescence leads to moral and spiritual suicide. The way of violence leads to bitterness in the survivors and brutality in the destroyers. But, the way of non-violence leads to redemption and the creation of the beloved community.Ē
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
- See more at: http://www.thekingcenter.org/king-ph....r7W02j3S.dpuf